Author
Topic: Near Term Human Extinction (Read 48813 times)

magnamentis

i know that the title is eye-catching and perhaps that's how it was meant to be :-)

i'm just proposing to consider to change the title into something like: thread to human population or thread for a significant drop in human population.

thing is that is see the tile and command-W it is :-) i'm sure i'm not the only one, while the topic as to which amount human race is threatened by events that could happen or have to be expected, is very interesting indeed.

there will be no human extinction due to global worming or total loss of sea-ice etc there are risks as to feeding and inundations etc. that could indeed reduce the number of humans living on planet earth.

if extinction will happen it would be indirectly, by events that could be triggered or boosted by climat change and it's effects.

i would gladly see this topic discussed further but without spending too much energy on explaining why extinction due to climate change won't happen within reasonable time and beyond that we simply can't see.

too much interaction and unkown feedbacks and/or their significance are part of the game.

i know that the title is eye-catching and perhaps that's how it was meant to be :-)

i'm just proposing to consider to change the title into something like: thread to human population or thread for a significant drop in human population.

thing is that is see the tile and command-W it is :-) i'm sure i'm not the only one, while the topic as to which amount human race is threatened by events that could happen or have to be expected, is very interesting indeed.

there will be no human extinction due to global worming or total loss of sea-ice etc there are risks as to feeding and inundations etc. that could indeed reduce the number of humans living on planet earth.

if extinction will happen it would be indirectly, by events that could be triggered or boosted by climat change and it's effects.

i would gladly see this topic discussed further but without spending too much energy on explaining why extinction due to climate change won't happen within reasonable time and beyond that we simply can't see.

too much interaction and unkown feedbacks and/or their significance are part of the game.

What is this, now you're proposing to change the title of the subject because you disagree with the content of Dr. McPherson's message? Because it's "shocking" so to speak?

Near term human extinction is the subject being discussed, not human population reduction by a large degree. That's not what Dr. McPherson proposes, he proposes near term human extinction.

Dr. McPherson admits that there's going to be survivors in bunkers.

It's the analogy of the last Tasmanian tiger in the zoo - yes, Tasmanian tigers didn't technically go extinct until that last member finally died of unnatural causes in the zoo. I've posted previously about my personal opinions about how long humans can reliably survive in isolated locations and in bunkers.

The subject seems appropriate considering that we're discussing and debating (hotly at times) the extinction of humans. In my opinion, there are a couple of posts here that are basically stating "humans have accomplished so much, and are not like other animals, therefore will be an exception" - that level of reasoning is not ideal, in my opinion.

"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."

There are going to be communities of humans in niche environments for the indefinite future regardless of how stupid we are and we are pretty stupid. There lives will be unrecognizable to anyone living in a developed country but they will exist.

Only an crackpot would believe in 6K warming till 2028. But what am I saying, also only a crackpot would believe in extinction of the entire human race till 2030. My friend, get horror movies that do not falsely pretend factuality, there are good ones with better visual effects than a doomsday prophet who lost his marbles.

Do you still stand by this ridiculously optimistic view, plinius?

If a 76% decline of insects was observed in 27 years in German nature reserves, the ‘decline’ would reach 100% in 35.5 years (conservatively, ignoring ecosystem collapse feedbacks). Meaning *all* insects in these nature reserves could be gone by 2027. Oh, and plants are in decline too. These are all assuming linear decline rates, while all we observe is exponential rates of change. That’s not good for human survival prospects.

If 60 percent of the world’s fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have disappeared in the last 45 years, wouldn’t the remaining 40% also disappear in the coming 30 years? We’re not significantly changing that course of events, are we? And wouldn’t we, humans, then be part of those remaining 40%? If not: What bees do we expect pollinate our crops? Are we going to create sufficient artificial biospheres in time for it to actually function as a stable fake-earth, a replacement habitat? Do we know enough to get the details right? Where are we getting the resources and funding for that? Who gets to go inside that fake-earth when wet-bulb temperatures or radiation levels become too high? We can’t shut down all our nuclear facilities in time for it not to cause extinction level dosages worldwide, can we? There’s no miracle cure for thyroid cancer, or protection of the water-column against cesium-137 and iodine-131. So, you may well be able to hide and survive a little longer, but not more than a couple of years until the cancer kicks in.

We have built a life of growth and prosperity, with ridiculous energy usage patterns, based on finite (and soon-to-max-out) resources with no equal replacement in sight. This is uncharted territory, and the fact that generations have experienced the fossil-fueled upswing holds no predictive power over our future. Just because growth has been thematic does not mean it will always be there. The failure of most people to treat this possibility seriously is disheartening, because it prevents meaningful planning for a different future. We can all hope for new technologies to help us. But this problem is too big to rely on hope alone, and in any case, no practical technology can keep growth going indefinitely.

Let's, optimistically, assume we'll have a year round ice-free Arctic (ignoring Greenland) in 2024, which seems entirely plausible considering what the jet-streams seem to be doing lately. Do you have any idea what that will do to sub-sea permafrost?It adds up. And, according to Semiletov and Shakhova:"For the permafrost, the past three decades is not a huge period of time, because the processes, the consequences of which we are studying right now and have to deal with, started long long ago. This was triggered by natural warming associated with replacement of the cold climate epoch with the warm interglacial period and followed by permafrost inundation by sea water. Scientists agree that submerged permafrost would eventually start degrading, but how soon and at what pace this degradation would occur became the major point of disagreement between them.It was suggested by some scientists that subsea permafrost would keep its integrity for millennia, which means that in the areas submerged less than 1000 years ago (as we investigated in our study) it should not have occurred yet. Our study proved that not only has it already occurred, but it has been progressing to higher rates, which have almost doubled since this degradation started.It is most likely that we are now dealing with the consequences of when natural warming is enhanced with anthropogenic warming, and together they are accelerating the pace of natural processes. This appears to be continuing the processes of permafrost degradation at levels that we have never observed before."You do realize that methane has 34 x the CO2 equivalent GWP over a 100 year span? We're already at 1840 ppb total column CH4. This used to never be higher than 800 ppb for the past 800000 years. This is a new IR bounce blanket trapping even more heat than CO2 and H2O are already doing.Either way, assuming it takes about 2 years more before enough CH4 has left the clathrates and other frozen carbon storage locations to make enough of an impact, we could reach +4Celsius above baseline around ~2027. That's not going to bring equilibrium for cold spots anywhere on the planet. It basically means stormy warm moist weather everywhere, too little water in the ground and only artificially grown crops remaining. Trying to feed 8 billion humans is not going to work, in 2027.

And, adding to all that: We have to consider the very real possibility that when shit starts hitting fans, lunatic 'leaders' with 'power' will want to go use nuclear weaponry, because they're going to assume, at some point, it doesn't matter much any longer. A lot of humans will respond with that state of mind. A nuclear winter will be the end of the groups trying to survive in bunkers.

More than two thirds of the world's wildlife could be gone by the end of the decade if action isn't taken soon, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund revealed on Thursday.

Since 1970, there has already been a 58% overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide, according to the WWF's latest bi-annual Living Planet Index.If accurate, that means wildlife across the globe is vanishing at a rate of 2% a year.

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/world/wild-animals-disappear-report-wwf/index.htmlIt's a very bad thing, but not necessarily leading to human extinction. To all the other posters affected by McPhearson et al, extinction is a very hard word, certainly near-term extinction. And I'm not talking about bunkers and stuff. It's enough that some tribes remain in some jungle for the species to survive. So I suggest to lay off with extinction, and focus on what actual science has to say.We have bad enough problems as it is without running wild with unscientific exaggerations that may lead society to avoid the hard work of climate change mitigation and environmental rehabilitation, as "it is too late anyway".

More than two thirds of the world's wildlife could be gone by the end of the decade if action isn't taken soon, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund revealed on Thursday.

Since 1970, there has already been a 58% overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide, according to the WWF's latest bi-annual Living Planet Index.If accurate, that means wildlife across the globe is vanishing at a rate of 2% a year.

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/world/wild-animals-disappear-report-wwf/index.htmlIt's a very bad thing, but not necessarily leading to human extinction. To all the other posters affected by McPhearson et al, extinction is a very hard word, certainly near-term extinction. And I'm not talking about bunkers and stuff. It's enough that some tribes remain in some jungle for the species to survive. So I suggest to lay off with extinction, and focus on what actual science has to say.We have bad enough problems as it is without running wild with unscientific exaggerations that may lead society to avoid the hard work of climate change mitigation and environmental rehabilitation, as "it is too late anyway".

I didnt quote the source because I knew someone would. Ok, no to human extinction. How about a 99% drop in population. Is that better? Cant have infinite growth on a finite planet. Systems fail, Civilzations collapse, species go extinct. We will go extinct.... when we go extinct..... Who knows. One thing for sure the way we live currently, its not working. And the planet is collapsing.

" ... If 60 percent of the world’s fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have disappeared in the last 45 years, ..."

Of the thirteen citations provided, which ones support this claim ?

Are you seriously trying to pick that bit out to downplay the dangers?It's not a "claim". And most likely an underestimate of the actual number.http://assets.wwf.org.uk/custom/lpr2016/This analysis looked at 3,700 different species of birds, fish, mammals, amphibians and reptiles - about 6% of the total number of vertebrate species in the world.

"We're confident that the method we are using is the best method to present an overall estimate of population decline. It's entirely possible that species that aren't being monitored as effectively may be doing much worse - but I'd be very surprised if they were doing much better than we observed."

And this site's death list, even though it's collected for religious tinfoil hat purposes, is all true as well: http://www.end-times-prophecy.org/animal-deaths-birds-fish-end-times.htmlExtreme weather will take a lot of life and biodiversity down with it. Simply because it does not have enough time to migrate, move or adapt. And because its patterns are gone. Birds may migrate South during winter, only to find a polar vortex ruined their lunch.

Thank you to several people for complimenting my post.Extinction is here yesterday and we should know.There is much talk about Mcpherson which i consider irrelevant.He is or was not the first nor the last.

Here i research wildlife around me and estimate the loss at 70-80%.The most annoying thing to me is how authorities brag about helping and improving it in midst of destruction.Research is sabotaged.Industrial Society destroys mind and environment.It produces industrial technophiles in that way and i bust their dreams all the time.

More than two thirds of the world's wildlife could be gone by the end of the decade if action isn't taken soon, a new report from the World Wildlife Fund revealed on Thursday.

Since 1970, there has already been a 58% overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide, according to the WWF's latest bi-annual Living Planet Index.If accurate, that means wildlife across the globe is vanishing at a rate of 2% a year.

https://edition.cnn.com/2016/10/26/world/wild-animals-disappear-report-wwf/index.htmlIt's a very bad thing, but not necessarily leading to human extinction. To all the other posters affected by McPhearson et al, extinction is a very hard word, certainly near-term extinction. And I'm not talking about bunkers and stuff. It's enough that some tribes remain in some jungle for the species to survive. So I suggest to lay off with extinction, and focus on what actual science has to say.We have bad enough problems as it is without running wild with unscientific exaggerations that may lead society to avoid the hard work of climate change mitigation and environmental rehabilitation, as "it is too late anyway".

Christine Dell'Amore wrote an in-depth analysis of the WWF report at National Geo.

She noted that two years ago, WWF claimed a 28% reduction, using the same data. What changed? Recently, WWF re-calculated their index, giving more weight to reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and less to birds and mammals. This gave greater weight to those species that were declining, and less weight to those that were increasing. Nothing in nature changed, just their fiddling with the numbers.

Limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2.0°C requires strong mitigation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concurrently, emissions of anthropogenic aerosols will decline, due to coemission with GHG, and measures to improve air quality. However, the combined climate effect of GHG and aerosol emissions over the industrial era is poorly constrained. Here we show the climate impacts from removing present-day anthropogenic aerosol emissions and compare them to the impacts from moderate GHG-dominated global warming. Removing aerosols induces a global mean surface heating of 0.5–1.1°C, and precipitation increase of 2.0–4.6%. Extreme weather indices also increase. We find a higher sensitivity of extreme events to aerosol reductions, per degree of surface warming, in particular over the major aerosol emission regions. Under near-term warming, we find that regional climate change will depend strongly on the balance between aerosol and GHG forcing.

Quotation from the Author in e360:Samset: That’s what we tried to find out in the paper that came out earlier this year — we turned off all anthropogenic aerosol emissions from all over the world. So if you removed all our emissions today, then the world would rapidly — within a year or two — warm between a half of a degree and 1 degree Celsius additionally.

You lie. Although the article you linked speaks about the nuances of the problem of calculating the number of species and their growth rate, the article is very clear that there is a mass extinction going on.

The lie Daniel B. uses is very similar to the "NOAA fudged the data" lie. It is a very effective lie. He uses the fact that this is a very complicated calculation with a lot of room for interpretation to cast doubt about the overarching claim. There is a mass extinction going on. That little bit of doubt gets multiplied in a scared audience who would cling to any beacon of hope that allows them to ignore the danger and continue their lives.

There is a mass extinction going on, and no reason to think that the trend will reverse. The globe is warming. The climate is changing. Humanity keeps expanding as if the world was infinite, like any other animal would.

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I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

I'm trying to write something on town planning and housing. I believe creating new ways of living is one of the few slim chances to avoid Near Term Human Extinction. The thread I started about a target for our individual carbon budgets didn't seem to take off so can I ask here if the following sounds reasonable.

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The science isn’t exact but it is reasonable to say:

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Humanity can emit about 100 tonnes CO2e per person before the Earth’s temperature rises 2°C above pre-industrial times. A rise of 2°C will cause changes in the natural environment but above 2°C there there will be much greater changes. These changes may see the deaths of billions of people and the extinction of many other species.

The exactness of this may be open to question but it's sure that if everyone in the world emitted 100 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the next 50 years, the climate response would be terrible.

You lie. Although the article you linked speaks about the nuances of the problem of calculating the number of species and their growth rate, the article is very clear that there is a mass extinction going on.

The lie Daniel B. uses is very similar to the "NOAA fudged the data" lie. It is a very effective lie. He uses the fact that this is a very complicated calculation with a lot of room for interpretation to cast doubt about the overarching claim. There is a mass extinction going on. That little bit of doubt gets multiplied in a scared audience who would cling to any beacon of hope that allows them to ignore the danger and continue their lives.

There is a mass extinction going on, and no reason to think that the trend will reverse. The globe is warming. The climate is changing. Humanity keeps expanding as if the world was infinite, like any other animal would.

Seriously? You do not like the results and cannot refute them, so you resort to calling them a "lie." I suspect you have read neither the WWF report nor the National Geographic article. Both will state that WWF changed their weighting formula. Yes, their is a major loss of animal life, possibly to the point of extinction. However, it was mostly among reptiles, amphibians, and fish. The only way to include birds and mammals was to change the calculations to overweight the declining species. Your tactics may fool the uninformed, but not the scientific community.

I see little problem with the WWF's methodology that reached the higher figure. The previous analysis was over-representing birds and mammals, because those are the groups for which we have the most complete data, for a higher proportion of species. They are also the groups with the most effective conservation and protection programmes, and unsurprisngly are doing much better than the less-represented groups. As a result, the first results were biased towards low declines.

The figure they're trying to give is the decline in all vertebrates. You can't accurately estimate that figure based on a biased subset, and therefore they've tried to allow for the biases by weighting the data towards the less-known (but very diverse) groups, extrapolating from data that are available. You can question how much use the figure is, given that vertebrates are so hetergoeneous, but the approach seems to be sound as long as they've got their sums roughly right.

Personally, I'd have preferred to see the figures by group, rather than trying to lump everything together... but the media like soundbites.

I see little problem with the WWF's methodology that reached the higher figure. The previous analysis was over-representing birds and mammals, because those are the groups for which we have the most complete data, for a higher proportion of species. They are also the groups with the most effective conservation and protection programmes, and unsurprisngly are doing much better than the less-represented groups. As a result, the first results were biased towards low declines.

The figure they're trying to give is the decline in all vertebrates. You can't accurately estimate that figure based on a biased subset, and therefore they've tried to allow for the biases by weighting the data towards the less-known (but very diverse) groups, extrapolating from data that are available. You can question how much use the figure is, given that vertebrates are so hetergoeneous, but the approach seems to be sound as long as they've got their sums roughly right.

Personally, I'd have preferred to see the figures by group, rather than trying to lump everything together... but the media like soundbites.

I agree. They really should have been more specific in reporting their results. Instead of stating that global populations of all the groups has declined by 58%, they should more accurately report which populations are in decline. For instance, they grouped all land animals into a terrestrial living planet index (TLPI), which showed a 38% decline. Habitat loss and overexploitation have account for over 75% of the decline. The freshwater living planet index showed the greatest decline at 81%. Their marine living planet index showed a 38% decline, all of which occurred prior to 1990. Also lacking is the bottoming out of many indices around he turn of the century. Tropical forest life index has increased since they bottomed out in 2000, Grasslands have increased since their bottom in 2002, wetlands in 2003, and rivers in 2002.

Yes, the soundbite sounds good, but how accurate is it to lump all species on this planet into one conveniently calculated index?

Since 1970, there has already been a 58% overall decline in the numbers of fish, mammals, birds and reptiles worldwide, according to the WWF's latest bi-annual Living Planet Index.If accurate, that means wildlife across the globe is vanishing at a rate of 2% a year.

Now lets take the context. The initial claim is true,with nuances, like always. Daniel B. goes in a rant discrediting the number in a way that seeded the most doubt posible without outright dismissing it. He of course can't outright dismiss the evidence because it will be illogical to most, but by smearing it's reputation he takes legitimacy from the initial claim, which was correct.

Then after a strong refusal he back tracks. His first argument was:

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Nothing in nature changed, just their fiddling with the numbers.

Then he changed his argument, admitted to the scope of the situation to gain credibility so that his next claim gains credibility:

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Your tactics may fool the uninformed, but not the scientific community.

Sadly, this last statement is true. Most scientists, like any sane human would, go into denial when they read this info. They tell themselves all kinds of fallacies to not accept this scary reality and substitute it for fake but comfortable skepticism.

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I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Please do not apply your tactics to my post. If you think that demanding truth and accuracy is a rant, then sobe it. I will not encourage sensationalism. As stated previously, they arrived at their figures by changing the weighting of their numbers, without posting their methodology. Extrapolating into the future based on a two-point line is highly illogical. Personally, I tend to agree with the scientists at the National Geographic over those at WWF, based on past history.

I'm not being sensationalist. I'm being realist. The problem is that the reality is so bizarre and scary that your psychological defenses go up and substitutes scary reality for comfortable but fake skepticism. It is actually a real scientific problem. If we don't solve it in time we'll have to adapt to climate change without preparation, like the rest of the animals.

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I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

magnamentis

What is this, now you're proposing to change the title of the subject because you disagree with the content of Dr. McPherson's message? Because it's "shocking" so to speak?

Near term human extinction is the subject being discussed, not human population reduction by a large degree. That's not what Dr. McPherson proposes, he proposes near term human extinction.

Dr. McPherson admits that there's going to be survivors in bunkers.

It's the analogy of the last Tasmanian tiger in the zoo - yes, Tasmanian tigers didn't technically go extinct until that last member finally died of unnatural causes in the zoo. I've posted previously about my personal opinions about how long humans can reliably survive in isolated locations and in bunkers.

The subject seems appropriate considering that we're discussing and debating (hotly at times) the extinction of humans. In my opinion, there are a couple of posts here that are basically stating "humans have accomplished so much, and are not like other animals, therefore will be an exception" - that level of reasoning is not ideal, in my opinion.

you may do as you like, it was a friendly proposal to open an important topic to more users.

there won't be human extinction du to the general topic of this forum and if the owner of the thread tells me no i'm totally fine. suggestions are just that, suggestions and they can be considered or not.

i for my part, which is not expected to be mutual understanding, do not like to discuss illusions and/or any other things that will not happen the way they're advertised. it's inefficient, blowing time and energy into the void and leads to arguments, mostly due lack of "good and consistent arguments"

since you're already driving another one of your various aggressive fallouts (by tone) i suggest that you watch your tone by keeping your anger in check, another suggestion that won't be followed up.

'We're doomed': Mayer Hillman on the climate reality no one else will dare mentionBy Patrick BarkhamThe 86-year-old social scientist says accepting the impending end of most life on Earth might be the very thing needed to help us prolong it

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“We’re doomed,” says Mayer Hillman with such a beaming smile that it takes a moment for the words to sink in. “The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”

Hillman, an 86-year-old social scientist and senior fellow emeritus of the Policy Studies Institute, does say so. His bleak forecast of the consequence of runaway climate change, he says without fanfare, is his “last will and testament”. His last intervention in public life. “I’m not going to write anymore because there’s nothing more that can be said,” he says when I first hear him speak to a stunned audience at the University of East Anglia late last year.

From Malthus to the Millennium Bug, apocalyptic thinking has a poor track record. But when it issues from Hillman, it may be worth paying attention. Over nearly 60 years, his research has used factual data to challenge policymakers’ conventional wisdom.

I recommend it as worth a read.

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"Para a Causa do Povo a Luta Continua!""And that's all I'm going to say about that". Forrest Gump"Damn, I wanted to see what happened next" (Epitaph)

I see he has changed his view from "How we can save the planet," to "We're doomed."

And while we keep hiding our heads in the sand, we will be doomed. Only by facing climate change head on can we escape certain doom. We need to stop CO2 emissions, remove CO2, geoengineer, and mitigate as much as possible. Because of climate change denial, reducing emissions is no longer enough. It's too late to avoid considerable damage. It isn't too late to save our way of life.

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I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

I've read it, and he is not really wrong unfortunately. The only unknown is the timing. Human civilization is doomed and the tragedy of the commons prevents meaningful action. (Note: this is not human extinction.)

And although this poll is among Democrats, it suggests that Republican politicians can continue to appeal to their base with climate denialism without much concern that it will cost them votes. And even for Democrat politicians, focusing on climate change probably does not need to be core aspect of their platform.

But I have to admit that my own behavior is part of the problem. I've greatly reduced my posting of climate alarmist news to my social media accounts, as my friends apparently to want to see kitten video's, and seemingly have little interest in any sort of issue oriented posts.

I see he has changed his view from "How we can save the planet," to "We're doomed."

And while we keep hiding our heads in the sand, we will be doomed. Only by facing climate change head on can we escape certain doom. We need to stop CO2 emissions, remove CO2, geoengineer, and mitigate as much as possible. Because of climate change denial, reducing emissions is no longer enough. It's too late to avoid considerable damage. It isn't too late to save our way of life.

Not only is it too late to save our way of life, it is essential that we alter our way of life if we want to eliminate CO2 emissions and prevent further damage that is not yet baked in. It is this "changing our way of life" that is getting in the way of addressing the problem.

The simple fact is that we are too vain and stupid to learn from good examples staring us in the face.Hunter-gatherers live sustainable for millions of years already.Agrarian society causes damage since about 12,000 years.Industrial society wipes out most everything in just about 100 years only.Let's pin our hopes on "smarter" industry many say...vain and stupid.All the smart industry of yesterday is destroying us today.

Infinite growth, population increase etc has little to do with our dilemmas.Every living being is biologically programmed to reproduce, it is the greatest natural force in the world, always was.Industrial society is the greatest destructive force in the world ever, destroying everything that was built up in millions of years at lightning speed.The lesson is with the hunter-gatherers clearly.

And because i know all the clichés and false assumptions usually replied with i will tackle some already;

- "But without industrial society we would only live to 35 years old!"

Nonsense, with only a handful of prehistoric human remains they are already dated to 60+ years old.And when those hunter-gatherers of today are forced out of their habitat we see very old people, tough as nails.

- "You are propagating the Noble Savage theory!"

Nonsense, never heard of it and it sounds pretty stupid. These are simple facts for al to see.

- "But you would have us all living in caves and chucking spears half naked!"

Rubbish, learning from your neighbors does not mean copying them like parrots.When your garden is all dead and your neighbor's garden is thriving with luscious crops do you try to become your neighbor?Or do you ask him for growing tips?

- "But those guys don't even have modern medicine and die from diseases!"

So what?Industrial society has way more suffering and disease, and it's medicine is still largely based on traditional knowledge to begin with anyway.All beings on Earth have disease, predation, disaster, violence...natural selection which was abandoned by our society.It only added more problems.

- "But you are a HYPOCRITE Forest because you are writing on a laptop which is an industrial product!"

No shit hey?People born into industrial society can't escape it's dominance 100% for it is a slave chain and you would end up in jail or dead.I only managed to discard 80% of industrial participation and footprint personally.I use a hand me down laptop and fridge and even a Philishave!I have a 20 year old tv that makes peoples faces purple too!Shoot me!

So what can one learn from hunter-gatherers?What is it they do?It is what they don't do one can learn from, and that would be a million things we think we need to do to our own demise.They focus on food/water/shelter, a few basic necessities, a song and a dance...pretty damned simple.

To suggest that some of those "primitive" people will survive to restore mankind while 99% of other people kill themselves is ridiculous.We have already killed 99% of them and the few remaining will be affected like anybody else.

To suggest that life has survived previous mass extinctions, and therefore will again is ridiculous.What stares us in the face this time is disastrous climate+societal collapse+thousands of nuclear disasters+ hundreds of thousands of chemical disasters, pollution and possibly indeed resulting in nuclear war on top.Industrial legacy...mankind will go extinct and possibly all life.And it will indeed be quite 'near term".Everything is near term in industrial society except that second planet for humanity to mess up as we do this one.Too bad for Elon Musk who is clearly as insane as he is intelligent....industrial moron

Forest Dweller, I'm glad to see your post because it touches on a lot of my own feelings. When I look at the graph of CO2 and see the spike starting in the Industrial Revolution, it's impossible for me to conclude anything other than that this entire era has been one enormous historical error. One way to correct it would be for our Western societies to admit that we have made a mistake. This would involve admitting that the Indigenous peoples we displaced here in North America were right all along however, making it unlikely such a recognition of our error will ever take place at the deep level it needs to in order for our practices to truly change. The lack of recognition of how deep the errors in our thinking go leads to things like sustainable development, the have cake and eat it approach. We need a philosophical revolution similar to the Enlightenment, which will lead to a new ethic that values nature. Changes in practices can only follow from a change in thinking, and we are still not there yet despite everything you hear.

Well thanks CDN_dude.It is not just the CO2 graph that shows exponential increase since the industrial dominance.(which is different from the date of industrial revolution)It is nearly all graphs, methane, population, pollution, extinction rate and so on.

Industrial society is rooted in agrarian society or civilization as many have described.So the problems go back further, but industrial society ramped them up exponentially.The native Americans are not a good example in my opinion therefore.They were often agrarian, and managing their own destruction as well as that of others.They managed the plains, the animals like buffalo as well not as part of nature but as masters.The civilizations of the mound builders, Maya etc all destroyed themselves.What was left returned to hunter-gathering and living in nature usually.

The North Sentinelese are a good example of hunter-gatherer sustainable life.60,000 years on an island only a few miles in size, and no problems at all.Or the Clovis/pre-Clovis ancestors of the Native Americans if you like.

I don't think the point is valuing nature, all societies do that but not all destroy it exponentially by thinking they are better...Shell Oil Company values nature.Enlightened philosophy, sustainable development...new thinking...No offense but that is missing the point Imho.

There is not much of a data base to use to learn from societies that have persisted for thousands of years (I'll have to check the North Sentinelese). I certainly would not characterize pre-Clovis North Americans as particularly sustainable- look what they did to the mega fauna in the Americas. There are examples of North American societies that did achieve a form of equilibrium later on, and some of these were still functioning into the 20th century. I cannot state this for a certainty, call it a hypothesis if you will, but I suspect that extreme conservatism- an antagonism to innovation- is key to not upsetting the ecological balance. It is as if ideas, inventions, are akin to invasive species in their effects. Which really saddens me, because one of the most delightful attributes of humanity is our curiosity and inventiveness. Perhaps we need to channel our creativity into the arts instead the sciences....

Just a quick correction for accuracy: hunter-gatherer societies existed for tens of thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands though I very much doubt that, but certainly not millions of years.And the main solution to all these troubles, rather than living half naked in caves and killing each other to advance natural selection, is to sharply limit reproduction to achieve a deep and prolonged decline of human population. Then we can all live in high rise luxury condominiums with a relatively small effect on the environment.

When I read Forest Dweller's post this morning, I knew someone would chime in with "but look what [early humans] did to the mega-fauna." True enough. I think it makes a nice analogy to our fossil fueled age. When ANY species comes across packets of densely stored energy, whether it's a copepod and it's a big spring algal bloom or a spear-chucking hominid chasing a mastodon, it's going to exploit it and convert that energy into its species' success. That's just how the game of life works. But grazing down a spring bloom, or decimating the mega-fauna is not a planet killing event.

For better or worse, and it sure looks like worse, OUR species stumbled upon 100s of millions of years of densely stored solar energy and we've been busily converting that energy into our massive, hugely over-large global industrial society over a period of just a century or two. And that leaves us with a wicked dilemma: continuing to power industrial society on fossil fuels is a path to global ecocide. Trying to power it up (much less still grow it!) on "renewables" before too much damage is done looks highly unlikely. That leaves a third path: greatly wind down the human enterprise. Peak everything needs to happen fast, or we're in for a world of hurt.

With all of the wonderful inventions of the past 300 years, humanity has the ability to achieve a sustainable equilibrium of sorts with a carrying population that is likely higher than the earth's population at the dawn of the industrial age (It was about 1 billion then). This sustainable equilibrium will not look like the hunter gatherer sort but it will not threaten the ultimate destruction of the living ecosystem.

I think 2-3 billion might be manageable with a rapid adoption of those inventions that reduce our impact on the planet. If we fail to do this, the planet will use its own means to winnow the human population and it will be really ugly.

Just a quick correction for accuracy: hunter-gatherer societies existed for tens of thousands of years, maybe hundreds of thousands though I very much doubt that, but certainly not millions of years.And the main solution to all these troubles, rather than living half naked in caves and killing each other to advance natural selection, is to sharply limit reproduction to achieve a deep and prolonged decline of human population. Then we can all live in high rise luxury condominiums with a relatively small effect on the environment.

That depends on how you look at it oren.If we define hunter-gatherers as non humans as well, then billions of years of history would be accurate.If we define them as hominids then millions of years.If we look at Homo sapiens alone then the latest dating from Morocco is 300,000 years.(in dispute of course, but the dates are only being pushed back further with every find)

There is not much of a data base to use to learn from societies that have persisted for thousands of years (I'll have to check the North Sentinelese). I certainly would not characterize pre-Clovis North Americans as particularly sustainable- look what they did to the mega fauna in the Americas. There are examples of North American societies that did achieve a form of equilibrium later on, and some of these were still functioning into the 20th century. I cannot state this for a certainty, call it a hypothesis if you will, but I suspect that extreme conservatism- an antagonism to innovation- is key to not upsetting the ecological balance. It is as if ideas, inventions, are akin to invasive species in their effects. Which really saddens me, because one of the most delightful attributes of humanity is our curiosity and inventiveness. Perhaps we need to channel our creativity into the arts instead the sciences....

I don't think the so called mega fauna extinction by human hunter-gatherer migration into North America, or Australia is a proven fact.The usual argument to counter that hypothesis is something like this;'Imagine a population of bushmen or pygmies in Africa wiping out all the elephants, giraffes, rhino, wildebeest etc'

And that is a pretty good argument while we see those very species declining by civilization and industrial means.Predator/prey relationships in nature are pretty well balanced.And yeah, those early humans should have left us some written history...lazy bastards ha Now all we have is some cave art showing...many big animals.The geometric signs are the real mystery...

"'Imagine a population of bushmen or pygmies in Africa wiping out all the elephants, giraffes, rhino, wildebeest etc'"

I'm not sure I follow exactly what you're saying here, but one argument about why that didn't happen is that those animals co-evolved with humans and so learned to avoid them.

See the book "Why Big, Fierce Animals Are Rare," among others.

But yeah, the transition from glaciation into the current inter- (?) -glacial likely played some role in at least some of the extinctions.

Logged

"A force de chercher de bonnes raisons, on en trouve; on les dit; et après on y tient, non pas tant parce qu'elles sont bonnes que pour ne pas se démentir." Choderlos de Laclos "You struggle to come up with some valid reasons, then cling to them, not because they're good, but just to not back down."